Five things we learned from Arsenal’s week

Arsenal’s Olivier Giroud will be a big miss while he recovers from injury (Picture: AP)

Arsenal have endured something of a roller-coaster week. Going two goals down at Goodison Park last weekend, they fought back admirably to claim a point before losing Olivier Giroud to serious injury. They kept up their unbeaten start to the season with a tough 1-0 win over Besiktas to progress to the Champions League group stages for the 17th year in a row, but what did we learn this week?

Here are five things:

Oliver Giroud is more important than many realise

Arsene Wenger revealed that Giroud is set for a four-month layoff after the striker underwent surgery on his left tibia. Coming in for a lot of criticism from many fans, his absence leaves a giant handsome-shaped hole in Arsenal’s attack and even those who don’t rate him highly realise the negative effect his absence will have on the team’s ability to score goals.

Arsenal are destined to always play Borussia Dortmund

The Champions League draw on Thursday was rather underwhelming as Arsenal were drawn in the same group as Borussia Dortmund for the third season in the past four years.

Referees don’t seem to like Arsenal very much

The referee in charge of Arsenal’s match against Besiktas on Wednesday night won himself no friends in north London as he sent off Mathieu Debuchy for an extremely soft second yellow, booked Calum Chambers for doing what he was told and generally acting as if he’d put his life savings on Besiktas to win.

The media don’t understand how Arsenal operate in the transfer market

This week Arsenal have been linked with a ridiculous move for Edinson Cavani in which some parts of the media speculated that they were considering paying £20million for a season-long loan for the striker. Arsene Wenger breaks out in a sweat if he has to pay that amount for a permanent deal, on what planet would he fork out that sort of money for a loan? I’d also like to mock the links with a move for Nikola Zigic but Arsenal paid actual cash money to sign Mikael Silvestre and Sebastian Squillaci once so that’s perhaps a less ridiculous idea than them paying £20m for a loan deal. Thankfully Wenger ruled out a move for Zigic.

Only Arsenal players on loan can score against Manchester United freely

In Arsenal’s last four games against Manchester United they have managed to score just two goals, however Benik Afobe, on loan with MK Dons, and Joel Campbell, who was on loan with Olympiacos last season, have scored three goals against the Old Trafford side in just two games. Can this finally be the season when Arsenal move past the obvious mental block that comes in to play when they face United?